


Choice

by deathtosanepeople



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Canon Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, Impressment, M/M, Not Beta Read, Pirates, Pre-Series, Pre-Slash, Press Gang - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 17:23:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5710816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathtosanepeople/pseuds/deathtosanepeople
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had been the dream again. It crept up on him on days like these, the particularly stressful ones. The memory of how he came to be here, and what pushed him into this life of piracy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluetears07](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluetears07/gifts).



> This fic was inspired by a post made by mischievousmuse on tumblr awhile ago, which I saw and couldn't help but go ahead and write. I hope you enjoy!

Billy awoke swaying wildly, grasping at cloth, his jerky awakening having disrupted the gentle swing of his hammock. He steadied himself, swinging his feet down to the wooden floor of the ship. 

Running a hand down his face, he sighed into the quiet darkness, the musty heat of the hold nearly stifling. His back was slick with sweat, the soaked material of his shirt sticking to him uncomfortably. 

It had been the dream again. It crept up on him on days like these, the particularly stressful ones. The memory of how he came to be here, and what pushed him into this life of piracy.

He rose from his hammock quietly, deciding to get some fresh air and clear his head. 

The dream was always the same, started the same, ended the same. He found he didn’t mind it as much as the other nightmares that came to haunt him on restless nights. At least this dream had a relatively good ending. 

Billy climbed out onto the deck, the cool washing over him immediately, the kiss of a salty breeze stinging his cheeks. He nodded to the man on watch, walking over to stand at the bow of the ship. 

It was a still night, not much wind to speak of, with a clear, shining sky. One might even call it calm. But Billy was restless, the dream always made him restless, the dream of his liberation from impressment. 

He remembered with utmost clarity the day he was freed from the press gang’s grasp. Could recall every detail in his mind, every feeling and thought that preceded it. Every day that had gone by on that ship, without hope of escape, without hope of rescue, was a day closer to his death. Perhaps not in the physical sense, but in his mind. Billy had known that if a man stayed and stewed, marinating in the rancid food of captivity, he would lose himself.

On a day that could have been his last day, with the sun burning hot enough to bubble skin, the sea nearly becalmed, something had happened. 

It started with a feeling in the air, a tension was moving about the ship, whipping in and out of the masts, the ropes seemed taut with it. 

“Sail!” A crew member yelled from the crow’s nest.

The tension came to a standstill, quiet, expanding, crackling underneath the surface.

“They’re showing the black! It’s pirates!” 

The tension snapped. 

The captain was yelling, the men were scrambling to get to their posts, the quartermaster was yelling, the guns were being pulled out. 

Billy felt like he couldn’t breathe. He had heard of pirates, everyone had, and he wasn’t sure whether to be afraid or to be excited. Pirates freed press gangs, recruiting members into their own crews. Pirates also slaughtered crews, sparing no one, showing no mercy. 

He decided, right then, as the canons began to boom, that no matter what the outcome, anything was better than this. 

Their ship was easily subdued, the captain of the pirates skilled and calculating, their own captain a cruel, useless drunk. None of his men were loyal to him, none respected him. Which made for shoddy battle strategy, and led to disarray and mayhem on their deck. His captain quickly surrendered. 

Billy stood, back to one of the masts, watching as the pirates came over the bulkheads. They were, as he expected, the most fearsome men he had ever seen. They had their faces painted like warriors, scars running up and down their arms, some slashed across their faces. A man with a saber grinned at him with sharpened yellowed teeth. 

He swallowed, backing up further against the wood. Here came the reckoning.

A heavy step thudded resoundingly against one of the planks laid between the two ships, and Billy raised his eyes to the man traversing to the other side. 

That was the first time he ever saw him, Captain Flint, dark as a wraith in his black attire, eyes sparking like coals, hair burning red and gold under the blistering sun. 

The man stepped down, the thunk shuddering through the boards across the deck. 

He began to speak, and his voice was like the sea. Rolling like tide, pulling you down into its depths like the currents, roaring, as powerful as the crashing waves in the most terrible of storms. 

Billy couldn’t take his eyes off of him. This Captain was either a god or a devil, heaven and hell wrapped into one man. 

“You have a choice here, join our crew, or stay behind with these men, the ones who would call themselves your masters.” As he spoke he walked, circling the deck of the ship, making eye contact with each man. “The ones who would hold their power over you, in order to take away your will. Join my crew, and you will never have that freedom taken again! Your choices will be your own, the ability to choose who will lead you, to vote among other free men, men who will be your brothers!” 

He stopped, his eyes settling on Billy. “Join us and take revenge for what has been inflicted upon you.” 

Billy couldn’t help but step forward, pulled in as if by the swell of the sea. He begged with his eyes, he was adrift, lost in these feelings. He waited for the man to speak again, wide blue eyes locked on foggy green ones. 

The man must have seen something in him as he stared, must have seen something he approved of. He said not a word to Billy, his hand going to his side to pull forth his sword. Billy swallowed, fearful, not of death, but of the man himself. Already it was impossible to resist the attraction of this man, already he was being sucked down into the undertow. 

The sword was handed to Billy, and the man nodded his head to where Billy’s captain—no. Billy’s captor, kneeled, head held back by one of the pirates, a knife at his throat. 

The man’s voice rumbled, and Billy turned back his gaze. “The choice is yours,” he said, eyes sharp and knowing, as if he already knew what Billy would choose. 

Billy knew too. He approached his captor steadily, the silver blade light in his hand, three years worth of pain, fear, and despair nearly choking him as they came blazing to the surface. The man who allowed it all, the man who fucking enjoyed it, kneeling before him, completely at his mercy. 

“Please,” his captor begged, blood gurgling in his throat, tears springing forth in his eyes, “mercy.” 

“Mercy?” Billy echoed hoarsely. His voice rough with all the years of silence, shaking and croaking as it emerged from his throat around words beside “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” for the first time in three fucking years. 

“Mercy?!” he repeated, voice strengthening with every word. “Where was your fucking mercy for us? Where was it when we pleaded for our families, when we cried out in pain for the homes you took from us?” 

The man was sobbing openly now, hands clasped in front of him as he pleaded for his life. “Please, please don’t, I was just doing what I was told.” 

“Well, that’s the difference between you and me now, innit? You’ll always be a man who does what he’s told, and I’ll be a man who makes his own choices. And this is what I choose.” 

He pulled back the sword and drove it into the man’s gut. The first cry of pain was thrilling and terrifying all at once, and it shook Billy to his core. But once he had started, he couldn’t stop. The blade flashed in the sun as he pulled it out, the bright red running freely down the polished metal. 

He stabbed it forward again, and again, and again. He knew not how many times he did this, he did not hear the screams ripping from his own throat, didn’t feel the wetness tracking down his own cheeks. 

From behind him, strong and steady arms wrapped around his chest. He struggled at first, choking on the tears in his throat, blinded by the tears in his eyes. That voice came again, and just as it could be as fierce as the gales in a storm, it was now as steady and as calm as a tide pool. 

“You’re alright, it’s done. It’s done.” The man lowered him to the ground, arms still steadily around him. “What’s your name, son?”

“Billy,” he choked out, dropping the sword to the deck, his hands coming up to grasp the man’s forearms, pressing bloody fingerprints into the skin. “My name is Billy.”

“Well, Billy,” he replied, whiskers softly tickling his ear, “you’re safe now, it’s all going to be fine.” 

The boy shuddered in Flint’s arms, voice hiccuping with suppressed sobs. 

“I can’t ever go back, can I?” the boy asked. 

Flint loosened an arm from around him and wiped the smatter of blood from the boy’s face. “Go back where?”

“Home,” he gasped out, voice cracking over the word. “My father, he would never accept a murderer as a son. I can’t ever go back. I have no family now.”

“Of course you do,” the man’s voice was comforting in its confidence. “Did you not hear me say these men would be your brothers? They are your family now, your home.” He turned the boy’s head, looking into shiny blue eyes. “You will never be alone again.”

The boy shook, breaking down into sobs, and Flint held him tight. Only a boy, yet nearly as tall as him, gangly and awkward, covered in blood and breaking apart at the smallest gesture of kindness. This was not something he should attempt, to heal someone so fragile and broken, while he himself was still so undone. 

He gently stood the boy up, facing him and placing steadying hands on his arms. 

“That man, over there, his name is Mr. Gates. He’s going to take care of you, and anyone else who wants to join us. Get you all integrated into the crew.”

The boy nodded, wiping away the tears on his cheeks, squaring his jaw in determination. “Yes, sir.” 

He squeezed the boy’s shoulders once before letting go. “You’re going to be alright, Billy.” He gave him a small grin before turning away. “Welcome to the crew of the Walrus.” 

The dream began to fade back into the past, that last, quick grin lingering in his mind’s eye. Billy rubbed his arms against the chill of the night, still remembering the feel of those warm palms against his skin. 

Flint had really fucked him. What was his young impressionable self to think? Presented with a savior, with a leader, with an object of reverence, what else was he going to do but worship Flint? 

He had watched Flint for years, only seeing the magic of the man, never knowing the lies and sacrifices behind that magic. He had idolized him, admired him…desired him. Flint had definitely fucked him, there had never been anyone to match his Captain, and there never would be. 

For even after the means behind the magic had been revealed, even after the god had been revealed to be a man, still he couldn’t help but to feel that pull he felt the first moment he laid eyes on Flint. It caught him unawares, in moments between the chaos of their lives. Flint entering his space, eyes narrowed in challenge, the power and determination in his stance making Billy’s knees weak. Listening to his voice, still reminding him of the melody of the rolling sea. Fighting at his side, the pattern of their movements ever in sync. 

As much as he hated Flint sometimes, as much as he wanted to give up faith in him sometimes, that boy, that boy wrapped in the Captain’s arms as he fell apart, would spring forth in dreams to remind him that he still believed. That he would always believe. 

Man, god, or devil, the Captain was his religion, the crew was his family, and the sea was his home. And he wouldn’t choose any other way.


End file.
